Call for Papers
ConPro ’17 will be co-located with the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy and will take place on May 25, 2017.

Important Dates
Deadlines extended:

Submissions Due January 10, 2017 (11:59:59PM ET)
January 17, 2017 (11:59:59PM ET)
Notification to Authors February 7, 2017
February 14, 2017
Final Papers Due March 5, 2017
March 12, 2017
Program Committee
The complete list of PC members is available here.

Overview and Topics
Advances in technology come with countless benefits for society, but these advances sometimes introduce new risks as well. Various characteristics of technology, including its increasing complexity, may present novel challenges in understanding its impact and addressing its risks. Regulatory agencies have broad jurisdiction to protect consumers against certain harmful practices (typically called "deceptive and unfair" practices in the United States), but sophisticated technical analysis may be necessary to assess practices, risks, and more. Moreover, consumer protection covers an incredibly broad range of issues, from substantiation of claims that a smartphone app provides advertised health benefits to the adequacy of practices for securing sensitive customer data.

The Workshop on Technology and Consumer Protection (ConPro ’17) will explore computer science topics with an impact on consumers. This workshop has a strong security and privacy slant, with an overall focus on ways in which computer science can prevent, detect, or address the potential for technology to deceive or unfairly harm consumers. Attendees will skew towards academic and industry researchers but will include researchers from government agencies with a consumer protection mission, including the Federal Trade Commission—the U.S. government's primary consumer protection body. Research advances presented at the workshop may help improve the lives of consumers, and discussions at the event may help researchers understand how their work can best promote consumer welfare given laws and norms surrounding consumer protection.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

Security of consumer technology, including potential harm and assessment of harm
Consumer privacy, including collection or use of consumer information
Online fraud, scams, and similar crime affecting consumers
Online advertising, including practices, ecosystems, etc.
Emerging payment methods
Usability, particularly in relation to other points on this list
Disclosure practices
Relevant consumer attitudes, beliefs, or behavior
Algorithmic transparency and fairness
Spam, robocalls, fake reviews, and other applicable advertising topics
Related social sciences work with a strong technical component
Other consumer protection issues relating to existing or emerging technologies
While this list is not exhaustive, note that this is a computer science research workshop. Closely related or interdisciplinary work is welcomed, but work lacking a clear computer science component or failing to constitute research may be rejected without review.

Workshop Format
One author of each accepted paper is expected to present the paper at the workshop. The format will be traditional conference-style research presentations with questions from the audience. Interactive and engaging presentations are welcomed. Following notification to authors, more information will be provided regarding available speaking times and other details. Accepted papers will be made available on the workshop web site, but the workshop will have no official proceedings. Authors are free to submit work appearing in ConPro ’17 to other venues following the workshop (including extended versions of their short ConPro work based on feedback received at the workshop), subject to those venues' restrictions.

Instructions for Submission
For consistency, many aspects of these instructions are drawn from the co-located IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy guidelines.

To be considered, papers must be received by the January 17, 2017 submission deadline. Extensions will not be granted. Submissions must be original work and may not be under submission to another venue at the time of review (but as mentioned above, work may be submitted to other venues following the workshop).

Page Limit and Formatting
Submitted papers must be no longer than five pages, including all figures. References and appendices will not count towards this limit, but reviewers are not required to read appendices.

Papers must be formatted for US letter (not A4) size paper. The text must be formatted in a two-column layout, with columns no more than 9.5 in. tall and 3.5 in. wide. The text must be in Times font, 10-point or larger, with 11-point or larger line spacing. Authors are encouraged to use the IEEE conference proceedings templates. LaTeX submissions should use IEEEtran.cls version 1.8. Submissions may be automatically checked for conformance to these requirements. Failure to adhere to the page limit and formatting requirements are grounds for rejection without review.

Submissions must be in Portable Document Format (.pdf). Authors should pay special attention to unusual fonts, images, and figures that might create problems for reviewers. Your document should render correctly in Adobe Reader 9 and when printed in black and white.

Conference Submission Server
Papers must be submitted at https://conpro.cs.princeton.edu and may be updated at any time until the submission deadline. During the submission process, you will be asked to supply information regarding potential conflicts of interest of the paper's authors with program committee members. The review process is single-blind.

Publication and Presentation
Authors are responsible for obtaining appropriate publication clearances. Final versions of papers should include sources of funding. One of the authors of the accepted paper is expected to present the paper at the conference.

Questions
For any questions, contact the workshop co-chairs at: conpro17@ieee-security.org.